Customer Reviews

Springsteen: Point Blank

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

It's always good to read a Springsteen bio that counterbalances the worshipful works by Dave Marsh, whose objectivity is tainted by his family's long personal relationship with Bruce.

On the up side, this is a warts and all portrait that offers information I haven't read elsewhere. It paints a fuller, more life-like picture than previous books.

On the down side, the author is guilty of gross overwriting and sweeping generalizations. Where one word would do, he uses four or five. I suspect many readers will also have trouble decoding the "Britishisms" that litter every page.

Another negative is the failure to grasp the culture of Asbury Park and Freehold in the 1950s and 1960s. I grew up in this area, a few years behind Bruce, knew this culture firsthand, and saw all his early bands (except the Castilles). The author alternates between being clueless and plain wrong. There were enough factual errors (e.g., Ocean County College is not on Hwy 9, the Stone Pony was not in existence during Bruce's scuffling club days) to make me question the accuracy of the balance of the book.

In short, while this is an interesting addition to my rock-n-roll library, I'm still waiting for the definitive Springsteen biography.

This is a well-written, if over-analyzed, portrait of Springsteen. Sandford, who's clearly a fan, writes about Springsteen's childhood and his rise as a rock star that turns into rock icon -- but he tries to do so with the objective of portraying Springsteen in more human terms instead of just feeding the myth-making machine as so many other authors have done. This means that at times Springsteen does not come off as squeaky-clean or saintly as some of the more hard-core fanatics want so desperately to believe. Sandford balances the musical (reviewing and analyzing Springsteen's albums and songs, Springsteen's coping with the problems and pressures and eventually coming to terms with being a star, etc.) with the personal (his relationships with women, his marriage with Phillips, his sometimes contradictory nature, his selfless giving to various charities and so on). Sandford also shows how Springsteen evolved from somebody who never read a book and didn't know anything about politics to somebody who now reads the classics and is much more politically aware. Sandford is also not afraid to criticize, or at least point out certain contradictions concerning Springsteen's behavior -- one example being that early in his career, Sprinsteen vowed to never play stadiums and had imposed a ban on T-shirt or merchandising in his name. By the time of the Born in the U.S.A. tour, however, he was playing huge stadiums and selling plenty of merchandise, courtesy of Jon Landau. However, this book is no sordid tell-all, nor is it a hatchet job to try to bring Springsteen down -- Sandford usually goes on to defend Springsteen, or at least to explain the reasons for why Springsteen did what he did.

One thing should be pointed out: Sandford is British, not American, and British sentence structure and grammar is a little different in style than American writing. He also has a dry sense of humor that is sprinkled throughout the book and he writes about Springsteen from an English perspective, not an American one.

This book does have it's flaws though, with the major flaw being that he uses too many anonymous sources for his quotes, causing a dip in the credibility department. He also tends to be a bit long-winded, which causes him to repeat himself quite a bit.

In the end, though this book shows Springsteen as more than a one-dimensional "Rambo with a guitar". Sandford succeeds in portraying Springsteen as a human being, with human flaws, and not as some guitar-toting cartoon character. If you're looking for a more objective look at Springsteen, then this is the book.

Having read just about every Springsteen book I've come across in the last 10 years or so, I've got to say that Sanford's Point Blank is hands down the least redeeming of the bunch. Rather than ramble on endlessly (as Sanford tends to do) let me just sum it up this way: first, this book offers no information that even the most fair-weather Springsteen fan wouldn't already know. Second, Sanford's prose is, at best, ill-developed, sloppy and over-written, as if he's trying to squeeze every fancy adjective he's ever heard into the very same sentence. At worst, it bounces around and runs on and on to the point of being unreadable. (And given that Bruce has made a career out of writing for "every man", as it were, with both economy and accessibility, Sanford's style seems in direct contradiction to the man he's writing about and the fans who will likely buy this book.) In short, even if Bruce were a raving ego-maniac (which I sincerely doubt he is) HE would find it nearly impossible to make his way through this book. On that note, the Dave Marsh volumes "Glory Days" and "Thunder Road" manage to reveal more of Springsteen's myth, legend, and reality in the first couple pages than Sanford does in an entire book. Spend your money on those, if you want, but take a pass on Point Blank.

This book is simply painful. The author is downright offensive with his failed use of big words. For gods sake, he's writing about the Boss here! He should really think about his audience before writing. What a waste of time....ugh.

Point Blank gets flamed by most of the Springsteen fans. The book doesn't deserve this. It is true, Sandford uses a lot of anonymous persons and it would be better if we knew who they are. Sandford doesn't paint a bad picture of Springsteen. The summary of the book could be: Springsteen ain't a saint, but he's a good and honest man who has come a long way to become what he is today. A must read for fans

I've been an avid and captive listener of Bruce Springsteen's music for about three decades. That said, I'm not above reading a juicy/tell-all tome such as this one that Sandford strived to create.

The problem is, he just doesn't do it well (mercy, he makes Angela Bowie's teall-all book, BACKSTAGE PASSES; LIFE ON THE WILD SIDE WITH DAVID BOWIE, seem like a masterpiece by comaprison).

Being pretty well-grounded and centered as an adult in my forties, I'm a bit beyond the need to have heroes (though I'll be the first to admit that Springsteen was something of a hero to me back when I was in my teens, back in the days when I still was dumb and innocent enough to have heroes in the form of rock stars). So, this book could have revealed that Springsteen spent a chunk of his life slumming around the most seedy places in Time Square...and it really wouldn't diminish the admiration that I have for the fine canon of songs & performances that he's given the world).

So, no, there was no offense taken...nor were my sensibilities shattered... by some of the rumors and theories that Sandford tries to put forth in his book.

The problem with Sandford's book is that its poorly written. I mean, the writing is downright bad. So bad that I'm surprised an editor didn't demand a complete overhaul of this book before allowing it to go to print. This book is laden with vague/obtuse sentences, along with some of the most awkward paragraph constructions that I've ever tried to wade my way through.

To make matters even worse, Sandford clearly has an agenda...and damned if he'll let facts get in the way of his agenda. There's certainly no crime when one tries to take a few feet off of a pedestal. And, really, I'm glad he did this while Springsteen was still alive, rather than after (what I hope will be a far off) death. There's nothing more demonic than the likes of Albert Goldman who've written scathing biographies of folk such as Lenny Bruce, Elvis and John Lennon after they're dead and gone.....and have no way of defending some of his more vile and vitriolic claims on their lives.

In the case of Sandford's book, he does such a poor job of masking his agenda that it's unlikely that a cat such as Springsteen gave a rat's behind about what is contained in these pages. Or, equally as plausible, Springsten...like many others whom I've known who've read this book...may have tossed it aside after a few pages of discovering that Sandford gropes with forming a coherent thought or even a decent sentence structure.

I am always wary of biographers who approach a subject with an agenda. As mentioned, their agenda often tends to ride roughshod over actual facts. That in itself would cause me to encourage folks to steer clear of this book. There are better and more objective biogrpahies about Bruce Springsteen readily available.

But, for those of us who dig a little dirt, Sandford's factual errors....and just plain bad-writing...make this book a trial and a chore to plow through. If one is going to dish out some dirt...and there will ALWAYS be a market for that....then I don't think it's asking too much for an author to get his facts straight and to write it in a style that doesn't read like a shoddy translation into the English language.

In a nutshell, this book is poorly researched and poorly written. Really, if one is looking for dirt on Springsteen, then hunt down the article that appeared in ESQUIRE magazine some years back. At least that piece is well-written.

This book is nothing less than a hack-job.

This is one of those books that people seem to either like or dislike...I have been a huge Springsteen fan since 1974, and I enjoyed every page. This books does a great job of taking you closer to Springsteen than any other book out there. Is Springsteen an narcissist? Probably...A few years ago I wrote down 10 things I wanted to do before I died and one of those ten things was to meet Bruce Springsteen...After reading Point Blank...I don't want to meet him anymore...But I will always carry his music in my soul for the rest of my life.

Sorry to have to give this a bad review. This sounded like such a great book, and I really liked the title. But yikes, how to figure out what the author is actually trying to say? I find myself reading the paragraphs over and over again and still not knowing quite what happened. Oh well, I'm glad some readers were able to figure it all out, I'll keep trying. At least the author picked a great topic!

This biography attempts to document Springsteen's meteoric rise to fame, placing emphasis on his music, concerts, politics and personal life. The author's assessment of Springsteen's albums mirrors my own, but he downplays or fails to recognise the extent to which Springsteen so radically changed the nature of rock performance. The intensity, pure exhilaration and uplifting nature of Springsteen's concerts are only hinted at. Sandford's account of Springsteen's political development is expressed in a rather patronising manner, and at times irritatingly mixed in with the author's own seemingly reactionary views. The story of Springsteen's personal life, in particular that concerning his parents and various relationships and friendships, despite much analysis and many words, offers little that Springsteen hasn't expressed more eloquently himself in interviews, especially in recent years.

This is a flawed biography, but worst of all Sandford simply can not write. His style is long-winded, repetitive and turgid, and his syntax awful. The book rambles on for over 400 pages in a pseudo-academic manner. The first few chapters, in particular, are poorly structured and at times sentences are incomprehensible and meaningless. Here are just a few examples (I gave up marking the margins after the first three chapters): "No longer would the Boss be the hard-eyed capo who flouted his moll". "Whatever his shin-guard flaws, they were more than matched by his academic scrapes". "Their few talks, hissed through carious teeth, soon left the foreshore of debate for the choppy seas of 'screw you'". "More than once he communicated in a semi-colon". Who does Sandford think he's writing for, never mind impress, with this gibberish? One of Springsteen's great talents is his ability to communicate. It's a pity that Sandford didn't try and follow his example.

Reads like petty gossip. A true Bruce fan will enjoy Eric Alterman's "Ain't No Sin TO Be Glad You're Alive"